1. Copyright Notice
In the description herein for embodiments of the present invention, a portion of the disclosure recited in the specification contains material, which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction of the specification as filed in the Patent and Trademark Office. Otherwise, all copyright rights are reserved.
2. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention relate, in general, to networking. More specifically, the embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for dynamically loading Management Information Bases (MIBs) on network devices.
3. Description of the Background Art
In a typical network environment, different network devices are connected through network systems. These network systems provide a physical and a logical connection between the network devices. Examples of network systems include, but are not limited to, Local Area Networks (LANs), Wide Area Networks (WANs), Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), and Personal Area Networks (PANs). Some of these network devices in the network systems are referred to as managing network devices and others are referred to as managed network devices.
The managing network devices can be Network Management Systems (NMSs) that observe and control processing of the managed network devices. Examples of the managed network devices include, but are not limited to, hosts, servers, routers, and intelligent repeaters. The managing network devices and the managed network devices adhere to a common framework called the Internet Management Framework (IMF). The IMF and the network devices abide by a common set of rules, referred to as protocol, for communication. Examples of protocol include, but are not limited to, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Common Management Information Protocol (CMIP), and Common Management information protocol over Transmission control protocol (CMOT).
A managed network device collects and stores management information using a network management software module. The network management software module collects the management information and makes it available to a managing network device. The management information is represented by various variables. These variables are network management objects. Examples of network management objects can be the number of bytes transmitted to and by the managed network device, the number of broadcast messages sent and received. In an existing technology, the network management objects are stored in a Management Information Base (MIB) in the managed network device. Therefore, the MIB is a database and a set of specifications of the managed network devices.
Any managed network device includes a defined set of MIBs. The network management objects that are handled by a particular MIB are also fixed. The managing network device can obtain information regarding a network management object by querying an MIB. However, if the queried network management object is not handled by the MIB, no information can be obtained.
According to conventional methods, various other management interfaces existing on the managed network device, are used for handling the queries that are not handled by the MIBs. Examples of such existing management interfaces include, but are not limited to, Command Line Interface (CLI), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). These existing management interfaces expose the management information of the managed network device. The same management information is exposed through more than one interface in case of an over-lapping. On the contrary, the management information is exposed through one existing management interface and not through another existing management interface in case of under-lapping.
In case of under-lapping, the management information is extracted from the existing management interface which exposes the management information. A user must be available to extract the information by querying the existing management interface. Typically, however, the information extracted from the existing management interface has a syntax that is different from the one used by the managing network device. Therefore, adapting the syntax of the information extracted from the existing management interface for use by the managing network device presents a lot of complications in the programmatic environment of the managing network device. Also, the conversion of information into necessary syntax is a very complicated process.
In view of the problems arising due to the acquiring of extracted information, a new MIB is required to be generated, to provide the management information to the managing network device. Network administrators request a network device vendor to add support for the new MIB. Thereafter, the new MIB is generated and added by software upgrade provided by the network device vendor.
However, generating a new MIB involves a long design and development cycle. As a result, generating the new MIB is a complex and time-consuming procedure, which can take several months or even years. Therefore, there is a need for a method and system for creating dynamic MIBs that are mapped to the existing management interfaces.